Restoration update and cool accessories

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I like the rain slicker. lololo I want one. At almost 100 yrs old, Archer needs to stay warm.

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I am of the opinion that one of the biggest problems with bearing material today, is that there a lot of people out there who don’t know how to manufacture babbit or pour it properly. After two different failures on my ’36 (material breaking into many pieces)the car now has insert bearings. Yet, inspecting the bearing surfaces on my recently sold 31, the bearings were at manufacturers’ tolerances and great looking after 30 years.

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Tony, I would agree with you, like a lot of things handling babbit is becoming a lost skill….

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Part of the problem is that some, maybe a lot of re-babbiting services re-use the old babbitt material. The old is melted off the rods or main bearing shells, and collected in a melting pot. This pot is put on the burner, and remelted and supposedly the impurities either sink to the bottom of the pot, or rise to float like a layer of scum on the molten metal.

Well, that old babbitt has decades of old oil and dirt contaminants in it, and who knows, like Tony mentions, what is the ‘mix’ of the alloy? Some old babbitt has a lot of lead and other metals not used in modern babbitt.

I looked up information about Babbitt, and found that there are several different alloys or mixes that are used for say, kingpin bushings, or rod bearings, or stationary engines, high speed and low speed bearings etc.

It’s best to find and use a shop that specializes in the babbitting of old engines and let their experience work for you.

Greg Long

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